The present invention relates to a new and distinct cultivar of Chrysanthemum plant, botanically known as Chrysanthemum×morifolium, and hereinafter referred to by the name ‘Lava Red’.
The new Chrysanthemum plant is a product of a planned breeding program conducted by the Inventor in Oostnieuwkerke, Belgium. The objective of the breeding program is to create new freely flowering Chrysanthemum plants with unique and attractive ray floret coloration.
The new Chrysanthemum plant originated from a cross-pollination made by the Inventor in Oostnieuwkerke, Belgium in September, 2006 of Chrysanthemum×morifolium ‘PPP FORZ06’, disclosed in U.S. Plant Pat. No. 19,923, as the female, or seed, parent with Chrysanthemum×morifolium ‘Carpino Red’, not patented, as the male, or pollen, parent. The new Chrysanthemum plant was discovered and selected by the Inventor as a flowering plant from within the progeny of the stated cross-pollination in a controlled greenhouse environment in Oostnieuwkerke, Belgium in September, 2007.
Asexual reproduction of the new Chrysanthemum plant by vegetative cuttings was first conducted in a controlled greenhouse environment in Oostnieuwkerke, Belgium in January, 2008. Asexual reproduction by cuttings has shown that the unique features of this new Chrysanthemum plant are stable and reproduced true to type in successive generations.